read_plink from cloud storage

[hammer]

We are able to read VCF files from cloud storage thanks to support in htslib for some functions and fsspec for others.

For PLINK BED files, I don't believe we have this option in our upstream library https://github.com/fastlmm/bed-reader. For BIM and FAM files, we use Dask's read_csv function, which does use fsspec, though we don't currently pass storage_options through.

It may make sense to try to support reading PLINK files from cloud storage some day...

[hammer]

Issue opened upstream at fastlmm/bed-reader#22

[CarlKCarlK]

FYI: From Feb 2025:

Support for cloud files is now released as [bed-reader] version 1.02 on PiPy. Thanks for your suggestion!

(I also used this as an excuse to write an article about adding this feature to the Rust side of the code. It will hopefully soon be published on https://medium.com/@carlmkadie)

[hammer]

Thanks @CarlKCarlK! FYI @jeromekelleher